The harrowing 'Room' is by far one of the best films of 2015

I never thought I would call something both a "hostage drama" and a "fairytale" in the same review, but "Room" is the one that brought up "Alice in Wonderland" in the first place.

"Room" takes one of those dark, horrendous topics that might dominate the news cycle for a brief period of time and and injects it with a healthy dose of humanity.

In "Room," Brie Larson plays a young woman held hostage for years in a stranger's tool shed by a creep named Old Nick (Sean Bridgers). She and her son Jack (Jacob Tremblay) try to survive in this tiny prison which they call "Room." Despite their imprisonment, the earliest scenes we see are not of misery, but rather of joy. Mother and son are seen making a birthday cake and laughing in the bath tub. "Room" knows when to make us feel sadness, but it also knows when to find joy in the lowest moments.

The two of them try to find the joy in a bad situation. A24

It is not a spoiler to say that halfway through the film, the two of them get rescued. Jack gets to see the real world for the first time, while his mother readjusts to a world that she was taken from. It is a brilliant move on the part of "Room" to make their rescue happen halfway through the film, when they could have framed an entire film around an escape attempt. It would have been a different film, albeit one that is smaller and more claustrophobic.

I am happy we ended up with this version of "Room" though. It is one that is deeper and transcends its very premise. "Room" might be the most cinematic film I have seen so far this year. That might sound strange, but it really does embrace visual language in a way that few other movies do. The moment that Jack sees sunlight for the first time is absolutely sublime. It is fascinating to see how the outside world is sometimes shot the exact same way as Room. It says that the sense of imprisonment felt in Room doesn't end once you leave it.

"Room" comes from director Lenny Abrahamson. This might be the polar opposite of his last film, the excellent "Frank." However, what they both have in common is people hiding from a darkness that we will never quite understand, and through that he gets some amazing performances from the actors.

A24

Larson is great, of course. She's both open and raw as somebody who has to cope with the fact that she has lost five years of her life. Even though she must be strong and mature for her son, she is still just a child, and we realize that from the second she walks into her childhood bedroom. This could be the breakout that Larson was supposed to get for "Short Term 12." And while she is great, the real breakout here is her young co-star.

As Jack, the young Jacob Tremblay spectacularly carries such an emotional film. Once he gets out of Room, you realize he is seeing everything in the world for the first time, whether it be a staircase or a dog. And from that, you will also begin to look at the world a little differently, in which every new thing you see is a little bit scary because it is so new. Plus, his voiceover, filled with childlike wonder, is one of the few times in which narration actually improves a film.

Jack sees the world for the very first time. A24

"Room" has so much to say and I could sit here and talk about it all day, but there should be some surprises left when you see it. It has a lot to say about both survival and imprisonment. It feels like the flipside of "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," or more like if "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" was a Neutral Milk Hotel song. But "Room" is so much more than just a great drama. It made me feel different things at different times. It reminded me that it is okay to cry during a movie.

At one point, I found myself shouting "oh no!" out loud. I never shout at the screen during a movie. It just felt impulsive, and that the characters' pain was so tangible that anything could have happened at any moment. Sometimes, a film is so good that it makes you feel things that are impossible to explain.